The Meadow (Part One) - Revised and Expanded.

[seandiablo]

I wasn't really doing much of anything that could be considered "out of the ordinary" that winter.

I didn't really have any kind of direction in my life - everything was kind of just doing what it does - because I was stuck in Life's Headlights. Again. I had a job, and was doing my usual routine of being the guy who works really hard for a pittance and a pat on the back. Not much was really finding its way beyond the barriers of my mind's internal defense systems. I was reading a lot, loafing around The City at odd hours of the night, and from time to time I would meet up with some friends for some drinks and some laughs. Really, not much to neither crow nor complain about.

Calling the time of year "winter" was really a misnomer, too. This was now the middle of January, and not one flake of snow had fallen on The City. The unusually warm weather was making me restless, because a part of me was willing to tolerate what I expected to be a harsh winter, in exchange for some kind of reward, some big payoff.

Of course, I was dreaming.

Earlier on in the year, I had made some attempts at trying to "meet someone". I had not been involved with anyone romantically in roughly two years, so I did the usual thing - I used the internet dating sites - in hopes that maybe I would meet someone out in The City who felt the same way I did about things, or at least felt something different than the majority of the general public. Most of my friends were partnered up already, with their happy little lives, and their happy little circles of couple-friends (C'mon, right? We have all, at some point in our miserable lives, been a part of a couple that has friendships with other couples - just because they too, are a fucking couple - it's a part of becoming adult-ish).

Most of the women who would agree to go out for a drink or a cup of coffee with me were kind, and mostly sweet. I had very few bad dates, when I really think about it. For the most part, they were just missing that something different that I was hunting for. I would even think that most of these women would make a fine girlfriend for any man.

Just not this one, because this one is living in a dream.

Let me explain this dream mumbo-jumbo a bit, before I go any further and lose your attention.

I find myself thinking too deeply about the impossibility of our happening in the Universe. My mind will run into any dark and spooky corner looking for a little light to shed on this experiment. I've dug around in all kinds of thought, trying to find the one true root of this Banyan tree. From most of my digging around and seeking out, I have come to little secret understandings with myself - the idea that we are all a part of a dream(quite possibly mine, yours, or Little Richard's - I haven't hammered it all out yet) being first and foremost - understandings that keep me from tumbling down into a metaphysical and emotional well.

The way I see it is this - if this is all a dream in which we are all unwitting participants, and there is no true way to know who the dreamer is, how can we not come to the conclusion that it's all one dream? And - if this is to be thought of as true - what happens when the dreamer awakens? Do we all disappear, falling into the darkness that the conscious mind creates for the subconscious? Part of me believes that the person who is doing the dreaming is actually the person being reflected upon as if they were not the protagonist, some kind of encrypted communiqué of the mind.

Obviously, this theory would lead us to believe that we would have to dream about people we know in order for us to interact with them in any way. It's not as if we truly dream about strangers, because we all know that strangers are some kind of representation of what we see ourselves as (well, this is my gut feeling anyway). I'm not so sure that Geshtinanna, the Sumerian divine poet and interpreter of dreams (and goddess of wine - which makes sense as well, since we sure seem to dream so much more vividly when infused with the power of that magic grape, don't we?) would agree with me, but I'm not really capable of contacting her and peppering her with my little theories.

But shit like this? This is what keeps me up most nights until the first fingers of the Sun start to blaze across The City.

I could also very easily cop out and blame Carlos Castaneda for filling my head with all of this dream stuff. His The Art Of Dreaming really put the zap on my head, and just like the rest of his work, opened up creaky doors in my mind, to let some of the light inside for a bit. The one thing that sticks around and pokes its head out from time to time -

"Explanations always call for deep thought. But when you actually dream, be as light as a feather. Dreaming has to be performed with integrity and seriousness, but in the midst of laughter and with the confidence of someone who doesn't have a worry in the world. Only under these conditions can our dreams actually be turned into dreaming."

- it just makes fucking sense to me. In fact, to me, he is talking about much more than dreaming - he's coming pretty close to encapsulating life itself in that statement. The idea that all undertakings should have balance to them, both light and dark.

Back in reality(?), I'd begun to get very tired of all of the day-to-day shit I was taking part in. My usual routine of rising, bathing, working, and then coming home to pretend to write, was growing very old and totally fucking stale. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I managed to get out with my friends from time to time to imbibe and enjoy each others' company. I certainly wasn't some kind of shut-in or anything, I was just there, you know? I had my fun where I allowed myself to have it, and I made sure to keep my mind open to whatever was happening around me.

But there was always this little humming sound in the furthest corner of my mind.

I wasn't really sure what the humming was all about, but I knew that something was about to make a shift in here. Movement of some sort was more than imminent. My mind was thinking about plate tectonics and earth-moving, because I knew that this something was already around me in some way. It was beginning to feel as if this something was hunting me, lurking in the corner, just waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on me and rip me into miniscule metaphysical shreds.

Needless to say, I continued to just loaf and lumber my way through my daily rituals. Every now and then I would find my mind wandering into a really clear and lush meadow of sorts, surrounded by trees and life (Daydreaming was certainly nothing new for me, as most of my career as a ne'er do well and/or student with untapped potential had been spent in that very state of being). This meadow was some form of limitless unstructure - a term that was coined by an old friend of mine who happened to suffer from undiagnosed schizophrenia - seemingly with no end of its beauty in sight.

Often times I would find myself wandering this meadow, just breathing and soaking in all of its newness and glory. Entire commutes on the train would pass by in mere minutes if I happened to wander on into it. There were some days that never seemed to end, with my consistent sojourns into the meadow taking priority over almost everything else I was supposedly responsible for. Even my employer was beginning to question my loyalty (and probably my sanity as well), as I could be found staring off into nothingness at any moment, shit-eating grin plastered prominently across my face. In the middle of being confronted by my boss, I immediately thought of an Edgar Allen Poe quote - "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night" - and my grin quickly switched up from shit-eating to sheepish.

The something, was in the meadow.

I made the decision, that over the upcoming holiday weekend, I was going to try and find some way deeper. I wasn't sure how I was going to accomplish this, but I knew it was what I had to do. Whatever this magnetic force was, it was time for me to find it and unlock whatever mystery it held for me. I figured it wasn't like I had anything to lose other than my mind, and that was going fast already. This business of disappearing into some subconscious meadow was starting to make me question whether or not I should be committed.

I did, however, place a call to my brother who lived way out in The Desert.

It felt necessary for me to tell someone what was happening with me, just in case there truly was something wrong. If something could go awry, it made sense to me to inform someone who knew me about the situation at hand.

"You are seeing what? A meadow? Are you even sleeping anymore, because this just drips of some kind of sleep-dep side effects to me, man."

I informed him clearly, that yes, I was sleeping. No more than my usual four or five hours daily, but still sleeping nonetheless. He then asked me a succession of questions pertaining to my drug and alcohol use, my eating habits, whether or not I was suffering from some kind of head injury, and the best question of all - "are you out of your fucking mind?".

"No, I am not out of my mind. This entire thing feels quite natural to me, like this is just something that is supposed to be happening to me. I have no fucking idea why, but it just feels right."

Immediately after those words slipped off of my tongue, my brother started to chuckle. He was quite accustomed to my whimsical and bizarre habit of seeking knowledge from whatever source I could find it. Hell, he'd even tagged along on a few of my wayward quests over the years, enjoying himself a great deal along the way. Which is exactly why I knew I could tell him (and him alone) about what was going on with me. If there was anyone I could trust in this situation, it was him.

Getting home from work late on the Friday night of the long weekend, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a few drinks and listen to some Coltrane, in hopes of those activities setting up my subconscious in a nice warm bed for the night. I poured myself a generous glass of whiskey, and threw Live At The Village Vanguard on at a decent enough volume for me to feel the grooves building. I tried to keep busy in my apartment, cleaning up around the place as I took my time getting myself into a more comfortable state of mind.

As I was cleaning in the bathroom, I took a quick glance of myself in the mirror, hardly recognizing who I was. It wasn't that I'd changed in any way, that would have been more understandable in that moment. What took me by surprise, was the way that my eyes looked - heavy-lidded, like I had been smoking a lot of hashish or opium. I kind of laughed it off as a nice side effect of overworking myself for a paycheck, coupled with the glass of whiskey that I was about to refill.

Standing at the kitchen counter, bottle of whiskey in one hand, glass of ice in the other, I started to feel a little off. Kind of like when you get up out of bed too fast, and all you feel is heat and a lack of oxygen rushing through your body at the same time. Grabbing ahold of the counter to steady myself, I caught another glimpse of myself in reflection on the toaster. It was blurry, but it looked like there was something in my hair.

Running back to the bathroom, I stumbled over a potted plant in the hallway, spilling its contents (a lot of dirt and a dying something-or-other) everywhere as I continued to race down the hall. I clicked on the overhead light in the bathroom with my eyes pressed tightly closed - I wanted to be ready for what I thought I was about to see. I took three very slow and deep breaths, letting them out as slowly as could be. Someone once told me that deep-breathing like this creates some kind of natural form of Valium in our bodies, and it had become a Standard Operating Procedure for me now. In any given moment of any given day, I could be found deep-breathing, trying to ward off that offness.

THIS ISN'T REALLY HAPPENING kept on flashing in brilliant neon behind my still-clenched eyes.

I slowly reached up with my right hand, gingerly feeling my way around with the tips of my now-trembling fingers. I couldn't even remember the last time I felt this disconnected from reality. This was much more disorienting than drugs - at least with drugs you knew you were altering your perception.

I opened my eyes as soon as my finger made contact.

It was really there.

A blade of grass.

Mind you, I live in The City. The probability of a single blade of grass finding its way into my hair was ridiculous, especially when you take into account the fact that it had been days since I had seen actual grass, let alone rolled around in it.

Gasping to catch my breath, I turned on the sink to run cold water over my face. I had carefully taken the blade of grass and set it on the counter. As I was rubbing my face with the water, I noticed that the music was starting to fade out. Looking up from the sink, I also noticed that the lighting had dimmed a bit as well, with everything tainted by that amber hue I usually associate with one of my panic attacks.

Opening the medicine cabinet to fetch myself a Xanax, I realized that the sink was overflowing onto the floor around me. As I reached down to turn off the faucet, I saw that the single blade of grass was now gone, probably swept away in the overflow. Looking underneath me at all of the water pooling up on the bathroom floor, I was unable to locate it.

It was gone now, as quickly as it had appeared.

Of course, I did the not-so-bright thing, and swallowed down that Xanax with the rest of my glass of whiskey. My head was already starting to swim a bit, even before I ingested the combination that usually brought about a night of half-reality. I figured I didn't really have anything to lose at this point, since the only piece of evidence that I had secured to prove to myself (and possibly anyone else) that this meadow was a part of my conscious and physical reality, had been washed away by my usually trusty, but suddenly clogged bathroom sink, never to be seen again.

If I was going to feel fucked-up, I might as well be fucked-up.

I was already half asleep - with one foot in the waking world and one in the dreaming world - before my body became a part of my couch.

There is a fog in the meadow. It hangs heavy in the air, and everything smells wet. Wet and clean. I can't really see beyond my arm's length, but for some reason I am not afraid, because I know that I am safe here. I take a few steps forward, knowing that there is a clearing ahead of me. I can feel the underbrush beneath my feet, which are bare. The ground is wet, and the coolness feels soothing as it works its way up from the soles of my feet. I cannot remember the last time I walked barefoot in wet grass.

That's a lie - I do remember. I was in Thailand. Pattaya Beach. It was summer. Monsoon season on the South China Sea. I was standing in some wet grass, intently studying an ancient Buddhist temple. This structure must have been older than my own country. It had a humming sound emanating from within it that was drawing me inside. I was no more than twenty years old. I found myself walking around to the far side of the temple, looking for some way inside it, some way to get in.

There was a window that had boards nailed across its opening, and when I took a closer look, two of the boards weren't fastened to anything, making it very easy for me to slip them off and get inside.

So I did just that - I slipped inside.

Once inside, I could feel the humming more clearly. I was being drawn to a large room that seemed as though it had not been used in hundreds of years. Actually, the entire temple seemed abandoned. There did not feel to be a human presence inside with me, so I felt very relaxed, which allowed me the freedom to explore the place to make sure that I truly was alone.

I was carrying a small amount of hash on me, seeing as how I was a traveler who wanted to travel, if you follow me. Confirming that there was nobody else inside, I decided to go back into the large room that was calling to me. I sat cross-legged on the floor, smack dab in the middle of it. I took out the little pipe I was carrying with me, and unwrapped the hash from the foil that contained it. Rolling a small ball of it between my fingertips, I put it into the bowl of the pipe and started to pull from it. It tasted sweet and acrid at the same time. The smell of the hash was lifting me up out of my body before the reaction started in my body.

I closed my eyes as the rush started to take me higher and further away from my physical self.

As I was floating deeper into my mind, I saw a pair of eyes. They were ridiculously clear and blue, like a reflection of the sea that was just outside the temple. I could barely make out anything resembling a face, but what I was able to see was enough. I found myself wanting to dive into those eyes and just swim in them. I had never seen such a set of eyes before, and yet they felt as familiar to me as my own breathing - an automatic recognition and level of comfort.

When I opened my eyes, there were people in the room with me. Monks in orange robes were floating about, doing whatever it is that they would normally do, acting as if my presence was inconsequential to them. I was quite high, and wasn't sure if they had even noticed me.

That thought quickly left my head as soon as one of the monks set a bowl of rice and a cup of tea down in front of me, nodded, and walked away.

Not wanting to upset or insult them, I ate the rice from the bowl with my fingers. It tasted sweet, as if there had been honey drizzled all over it. It had to be the most amazing bowl of rice I had ever consumed. As I was eating it, I surveyed my surroundings a little more closely - three monks cleaning the temple, one monk in silent prayer near an altar, and the sounds of a broom sweeping in the next room - business as usual.

As I finished the rice and the cup of tea, the monk who brought it to me in the first place came over to retrieve the bowl. Again, there were no words, only a knowing nod of the head, and then he walked away from where I was still sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. I realized that I had intruded upon their sanctuary, and slowly got up to leave.

"Don't you think you ought to meditate with us first, before you leave?"

It was the monk who had fed me, but his mouth did not move.

I didn't know how to respond to him, so I just took my time walking over to the spot in front of the altar where the other monk was in prayer. I got myself down onto the wooden floor next to him, and allowed my mind to slip away. I wasn't concentrating on anything, but immediately those eyes came back into my inner vision, cool, blue, and inviting.

I felt like I was floating away on them, drifting deeper into their mystery, when I realized I was no longer inside the temple. I was outside, laying in the very same grass that had led me there to begin with.

Grass that I now have under my feet, in this meadow.

The fog is lifting, and I can hear running water of some sort off in the distance, to the East. How I was able to decipher direction was beyond me, especially since this meadow is obviously only alive in my subconscious mind. I was still as calm as i could possibly be, even though I had just gone back in time, into a memory that I could now taste on my tongue. The rice and tea were in my stomach, I could feel it very clearly.

I could also feel that something. It was watching me, studying me.

I'm not sure how long I was out, but it didn't feel like more than a few minutes. When I sat up and took a personal inventory (Where am I? Is anyone here? Who am I? What day is this?) I noticed that there had been a candle on the table near the couch that had burned all the way down. The wax had worked its way off of the table, and had hardened like a stalactite to the rug. It looked all sinewy and alive - reds blending into whites - like the way one of those cadaver models looks in a high school biology class. I looked at my hands for a good while, trying to see how much I had aged in my sleep.

I guess you could say I had covered two potential disasters that evening - flood and fire - and somehow managed to avoid either calamity.

When I went back into the kitchen to get myself something to drink, I noticed the kitchen window being open. The snow was finally falling, glistening in the glow of the light leaking out from the kitchen. I stood there taking it all in - the crispness of the air outside helping snap me back into reality - the snow, the night, the beginnings of winter.

I could still taste the chalkiness of the Xanax in my mouth, so I decided I should just suck it up and make myself some tea. Putting it on, I finally was able to register the sound coming from the other room - Coltrane was right in the middle of an extended solo during "Softly, As A Morning Sunrise", the notes filling up the space around my mind in a way that bordered on a vision. I just stood there, slow grin smoothing over my face as I silently watched the blue flame licking the bottom of the kettle. I grabbed a cigarette, and held it to the fire underneath the kettle. The first drag felt smooth, but then again, don't they always?

As soon as I started to pour the water into my cup, the phone began to ring. I hardly ever received calls, especially at this late an hour. I looked over at the clock on the coffeemaker to see that it was now 3:47AM, well beyond the time-frame for calls that are bringers of good news. I thought about ignoring the ringing, but I was also drawn toward the phone, out of some kind of burning need to have any kind of human contact that would allow me to feel something other than my smallness.

I picked up the receiver, and I immediately knew who was on the other end of the line.